Over the years, various article, e.g., mail, feeding, handling, sorting, and transporting systems have been developed for feeding, handling, sorting, and transporting pieces of mail. Adhesive tabs or seals have also been used to close or seal the loose edges of a paper, brochure, envelope, magazine or other articles of mail being handled or transported. The loose edge of a piece of mail, for example, is closed or sealed to allow the mail to be handled by feeding and processing machinery and to provide a degree of confidential nature to the closed or sealed mail. Increasing the speed and accuracy of placement of these tabs, however, has become more important as mail quantities increase, as labor becomes more expensive, and as more and improved automation is desired.
In order to provide significant improvements in the speed and efficiency in placing of these tabs, systems were developed for aligning and tabbing mail. An example of such a system can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,393,366 by Bell titled "Aligning And Tabbing Method And Apparatus." This patent is also assigned to the same assignee of the present application. This patent describes an apparatus which rotates an article 90 degrees to be aligned properly to receive tabs.
Once these tabbing processes or this machinery is positioned into place in a mail handling process, however, it can be difficult to stop the process or to prevent some mail from receiving a tab. Additionally, in some mail handling processes, the fact that a piece of machinery provides tabbing to mail can make ready acceptance of the mail handling machinery difficult as well. Further, some mail handling machinery or systems require either the presence or absence of a tabber. No other option is provided.